Learning to Listen: Conversations for Change Archive

In this first conversation of BTC’s Learning to Listen: Conversations for Change spring series, the Honorable Judge Erica Yew will share what she has been learning over the course of her convention-shattering career, and the importance of listening to families and partnering with them to improve justice outcomes for all.

Judge Yew was appointed by the Supreme Court as a CJEO member in May, 2019. She has served on the Santa Clara County Superior Court since 2001, where her judicial assignments have included a variety of court settings, such as presiding over a dependency drug treatment court and other collaborative problem-solving courts. In 2010, the Supreme Court appointed Judge Yew to the Commission on Judicial Performance, where she served as a member until 2019, and as the commission’s chairperson from 2013 to 2016. Judge Yew also served as a member of the Judicial Council from 2009 to 2012. Currently, she serves on the boards for the National Center for State Courts and the California Judges Association. She is also a member of the California Access to Justice Commission and co-chairs the commission’s Racial Justice and Intersectionality Committee. Judge Yew is also a co-chair of Governor Newsom’s California Judicial Mentor Program. Judge Yew has received a number of awards for her community service and work as a judge, including Outstanding Jurist of the Year in 2016 from the Santa Clara County Bar Association and the 2017 Distinguished Service Award from the Judicial Council.

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Join Andrew Solomon, Ph.D., LGBTQ rights, mental health, and arts activist; New Yorker and New York Times contributor; and award-winning author of Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity and The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression as he ponders how COVID has challenged and changed our families, and find out who rocks the cradle now.​

Andrew Solomon observes that the nature of family has changed and is changing profoundly, and proposes that we cheat ourselves when we fail to recognize and celebrate that burgeoning diversity. He has met with single parents, divorced parents, foster parents, parents who used assisted reproductive technology, same-sex parents, multi-parent families, and many other categories of people who are inventing new structures from which we all stand to learn. His work has deepened profoundly his experience as a husband and father.

Andrew Solomon, Ph.D., is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University Medical Center, Lecturer in Psychology at Yale University, and past President of PEN American Center. He is a writer and lecturer on psychology, politics, and the arts and an activist in LGBT rights, mental health, and the arts. Andrew writes regularly for The New Yorker and The New York Times.

His 2012 book, Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and was chosen as one of the New York Times Ten Best Books of 2012. His subsequent book, Far and Away: How Travel Can Change the World, was published in 2016 and has been named a New York Times Notable Book. He previously wrote The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, which won the 2001 National Book Award and was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize. Most recently, he made an award-winning film of Far from the Tree, available on Hulu, and an audiobook called New Family Values. ​Andrew lives with his husband and son in New York and London and is a dual national. He also has a daughter with a college friend.

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On any given day, there are more than 80 million refugees around the world, nearly half of whom are children. Join Sesame Workshop’s Tara Wright, Senior Manager of Content Design, and Maria del Rocio Galarza, Vice President of US Social Impact for a conversation about how Sesame Workshop aims to support children, families, and providers as they arrive and resettle in the United States by creating resilience-building resources and celebrating the unique strengths of different communities.

Tara Wright serves as Senior Content Manager in the U.S. Social Impact department at Sesame Workshop, the non-profit educational organization behind the beloved children’s show, Sesame Street. In her work at Sesame, Tara creates content for SesameStreetInCommunities.org and SesameStreetforMilitaryFamilies.org, with the goal to help kids, families, and the providers who serve them grow smarter, stronger, and kinder. Tara is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, a Marine Corps wife, and a mama to two young boys.

Maria del Rocío Galarza serves as Vice President of US Social Impact at Sesame Workshop. Maria manages the development of educational content for a wide range of multimedia projects. As an expert in early childhood educational development, Maria works with advisors to ensure that the content of Sesame Street’s initiatives is age-appropriate, engaging, and effective.

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American Indian and First Nations (hereafter Indigenous) communities are home to countless cultural, community, and family strengths. Yet, in the face of colonization and resulting health inequities, these strengths are often missed, uncelebrated, and/or misunderstood in health research. Innovation in the ways we engage with, celebrate, and assess Indigenous sources of strength is a critical step forward for equity-driven research. This presentation shared examples of Indigenous family strengths in the forms of benevolent childhood experiences, positive cultural identity, and other socio-cultural factors. Research from ongoing tribally-based participatory research studies reveal how these strengths are associated with positive health outcomes and thus represent important protective factors for promoting Indigenous well-being in holistic ways.

Melissa Walls, Ph.D., is an Anishinaabe social scientist working in collaboration with Indigenous communities in the United States and Canada on health equity research and culturally relevant public health programming. Dr. Walls is an Associate Professor of American Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Director of the Great Lakes Hub of the Johns Hopkins University Center for American Indian Health.

Dr. Walls serves as the principal investigator with a longstanding research team that includes Anishinaabe community members and academic researchers working together to understand and address the social, historical, and contemporary determinants of unequal health outcomes.

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We listened with Linda Smith, Director of the Bipartisan Policy Council’s (BPC) Early Childhood Development Initiative, as she discussed what the 2022 midterm elections told us about who is listening to the children, and their families, and what we can expect policymakers — on both sides of the aisle — will and won’t do on their behalf.

Previously, Smith served as the executive director for the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA), where she represented more than 650 community-based agencies concerned with the care of children in their earliest years. Key components of NACCRRA’s advocacy efforts included strengthening childcare licensing and oversight, requiring comprehensive background checks, and establishing minimum training requirements for all childcare workers.

Smith most recently served as the deputy assistant secretary for early childhood development in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In this role, she provided overall policy coordination for the Head Start and Early Head Start programs and the Child Care and Development Fund. She also served as the department’s liaison to the U.S. Department of Education and other federal agencies.

Smith served as a legislative fellow and professional staffer on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee under the chairmanship of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Prior to this work, she was the director of the Office of Family Policy for the Secretary of Defense, where she was one of the primary architects of the military’s childcare program. Additionally, she has held positions with both the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force. Smith began her career in early childhood education on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in her native state of Montana. She is a graduate of the University of Montana.

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This presentation will provide an overview of implicit bias in early childhood environments and its impact on interactions and relationship building. Participants will engage in strategies to reduce implicit bias and examine and explore stressful situations in the early childhood environment that are most likely to be influenced by implicit bias. ‘White Spaces’ will be discussed as areas where implicit bias lives and is expressed.

Dr. Rosemarie Allen has served as a diversity, equity, and inclusion leader for over 30 years. She serves as the President and CEO of the Institute for Racial Equity & Excellence (IREE), which is the lead agency for ensuring equity in educational and organizational practices throughout the nation. In this capacity she has worked with the United States Department of Education as well as 48 State Departments of Education, the United States Customs and Border Protection, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), Police Officer Standard Training (POST), and numerous police departments, school districts and other organizations providing training on implicit bias, microaggressions, anti-racism, and racial equity. Dr. Allen is also an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the Metropolitan State University of Denver.  Her classes are focused on ensuring leaders are aware of how issues of equity, privilege, and power impact human interactions and teaching practices. 

Rosemarie has served in directorship roles with the Colorado Department of Human Services as the Director of the Division of Early Learning and in Youth Corrections. In Early Learning, she oversaw the State’s child care licensing program, the federal child care assistance program, the redesign of the State’s quality rating and improvement system, the implementation of the State’s professional development plan, and assisted in the creation of Colorado’s early learning guidelines.  

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Join Debi Jackson, a self-described “conservative Southern Baptist Republican from Alabama” and nationally-known advocate for transgender rights, discussing how her transgender daughter launched her on her life’s mission: to help us to listen to children’s messages that are hard to hear, that may call into question everything we were brought up to believe.

Debi Jackson is a nationally-known advocate for transgender rights. She is the mother of a transgender child and frequently travels to speak about trans kids. She was recently awarded the 2016 Role Model Award by the National Education Association’s GLBT Caucus. Through her advocacy, she works with esteemed organizations such as PFLAG, the Human Rights Campaign, Gender Odyssey, and the Trevor Project. Her involvement with these organizations, as well as her personal connection to several thousand transgender adults and families with transgender children, has enhanced her knowledge and understanding of trans-inclusivity needs and solutions.

Debi Jackson first took the world by storm in 2014 when her speech about her daughter’s transition at the age of 4 went viral. The self-described “conservative Southern Baptist Republican from Alabama” now speaks on behalf of transgender children and their families around the world. Debi is one of the first parents to speak out in a very public way in support of a transgender child. Even though her personal story is compelling, she doesn’t expect people to form opinions based on their heart alone. She appeals to logic and reason. In order to advocate for her daughter and now, all transgender children, she has amassed a huge amount of data that can help destigmatize transgender people in society.

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This virtual presentation will examine how NICWA has used the intersection between the linear worldview of Western culture, helping, and research and the relational worldview of Indigenous peoples and organizations to advance the interests of Indigenous children and families. NICWA’s success as a community development, training, and advocacy organization has been built on its culturally based approach. The speaker will share the story of this process as an example of decolonizing relationships between mainstream service providers and researchers and Indigenous communities.

Terry Cross (Ha-ne-ga-noh), Member of the Seneca Nation, founding executive director of NICWA and author of Positive Indian Parenting and co-authored Towards a Culturally Competent System of Care. Terry is an enrolled member of the Seneca Nation, received his master’s degree in social work from Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. He is the founding executive director of NICWA, now serving as senior advisor. He is the author of Positive Indian Parenting and co-authored Towards a Culturally Competent System of Care, published by Georgetown University. He has 47 years of experience in child welfare, including 10 years of direct practice.

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In this conversation, Professor Loretta J. Ross shares stances, skills, and strategies for listening to those with whom we disagree. She discusses how we can call in those whose implicit or explicit biases limit what they hear into productive conversations and new understandings.

Professor in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender at Smith College, Loretta J. Ross teaches courses on white supremacy, human rights, and calling in the calling out culture. Professor Ross co-created the theory of reproductive justice in 1994 and has dedicated much of her career to health and reproductive justice for women of color.

She has served as Executive Director of the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, National Program Director of the National Black Women’s Health Project, National Coordinator of the Sister Song Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, and National Co-Director of the March for Women’s Lives (Washington D.C, April 25, 2004). A self-described radical Black feminist, Professor Ross is also an activist and public intellectual, and has co-authored three books on reproductive justice: Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice (2004); Reproductive Justice: An Introduction (2017); and Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, Critique (2017). Her newest book, Calling In the Calling Out Culture, is forthcoming in 2022.

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Dr. Hinemoa Elder, MNZM, a Māori child and adolescent psychiatrist and Fellow of the Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, speaks with Brazelton Touchpoints Center Executive Director Joshua Sparrow, MD, about her reflections as a Māori child and adolescent psychiatrist, with the aim of broadening our focus in order to foster and maintain well-being for families. This event is part of BTC’s Learning to Listen: Conversations for Change webinar series.

Dr. Hinemoa Elder, MNZM, is of Te Aupouri, Ngāti Kurī, Te Rarawa, and Ngāpuhi nui tonu descent. She is an advocate for Te Reo Māori — the Māori language and the cultural knowledge the language embodies. A child and adolescent psychiatrist, Dr. Elder works clinically in community, inpatient, and forensic settings, and has conducted research grounded in Māori methodology and ways of knowing and being on traumatic brain injury in young people, and dementia from a Māori perspective.

A Fellow of the Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, Dr. Elder received the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2019 for services to Māori and Psychiatry. She is the Chair of the Indigenous Working Group of the International Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists and Allied Professionals (IACAPAP) and is on the working group for child and adolescent psychiatry of the World Psychiatric Association. Before beginning her medical career, Dr. Elder hosted a live daily children’s television program in Aotearoa. Her best-selling book, Aroha: Māori wisdom for a contented life lived in harmony with our planet, was published in 2021.

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Featuring Ishmael Beah, whose best-seller, A Long Way Gone, tells the story of his life as a child soldier in Sierra Leone, and Priscillia Kounkou-Hoveyda, a human rights lawyer and activist who has helped reintegrate girls into their communities who had been used by terrorists as weapons of war. They share their experiences with BTC’s Joshua Sparrow, MD, and discuss how together they are raising their own children to understand who they are and where they come from.

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Featuring Elaine Hall, Founder of The Miracle Project and internationally recognized autism educator and advocate, and Yudi Bennett, co-Founder of Exceptional Minds and Founder of the Foothill Autism Alliance. Yudi and Elaine join BTC’s Joshua Sparrow, MD, in exploring how – as mothers and entertainment industry professionals – they both learned not only to listen to their children, but to give voice to thousands of children with autism spectrum disorders, and to help them discover their inner artists.

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Kris Perry, Deputy Secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency and Senior Advisor to Governor Newsom on Implementation of Early Childhood Development Initiatives was a plaintiff in the landmark Proposition 8 case which returned marriage equality to California and is an early childhood leader who has been instrumental in strengthening early learning policy, infrastructure, and investments at local, state and national levels.

Kris talks with Brazelton Touchpoints Center’s Joshua Sparrow about her work, her family’s fight for marriage equality, and the struggles and joys of same-sex parenting. Join us after the conversation for a live, interactive panel discussion with Kris and four other women leaders in the fight for LGBTQ families and their rights.

Kris Perry, Deputy Secretary California Health and Human Services Agency and Senior Advisor to the Governor on Implementation of Early Childhood Development Initiatives Kris is a nationally recognized early childhood advocate and has been instrumental in driving effective early learning policy at local, state, and national levels. She previously served as president of Save the Children Action Network (SCAN). Prior to SCAN, Perry was the executive director of the First Five Years Fund. She was also executive director of First 5 California and First 5 San Mateo County, fostering their emergence as one of the most well-known and respected advocates for early childhood development on the state and national levels. Her dedication to children and their families began at the Alameda County Social Services Agency, where she worked for more than 12 years in various capacities, including as a child abuse investigator, family preservation case manager, and program manager. Perry was also a plaintiff in the landmark Proposition 8 case that returned marriage equality to California after a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Laura Benkov, Ph.D., Author, Reinventing the Family: The Emerging Story of Lesbian and Gay Parents  Laura is a clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist who has worked with children, adults, couples, and families for decades in a variety of community mental health, private practice, school, and hospital settings, providing both psychotherapy and neuropsychological/psychological evaluation. She is a Behavioral Health Integration Manager at the Pediatric Physicians Organization at Boston Children’s Hospital and is formerly the Clinic Director at Think: Kids at Massachusetts General Hospital. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, she worked at Fenway Community Health Center in Boston, focusing on HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ family formation. She is the author of one of the first books (and several subsequent articles) on the subject of lesbian and gay parenthood, Reinventing the Family: The Emerging Story of Lesbian and Gay Parents (Crown, 1994).

Jane Clementi, Co-founder, and CEO, Tyler Clementi Foundation Jane co-founded the Tyler Clementi Foundation to make sure that society learns the consequences of discrimination and bullying, as she learned all too personally through the loss of her son Tyler. The mission of the Tyler Clementi Foundation is to end all online and offline bullying in schools, workplaces, and faith communities. The Foundation is focused on the areas of educational research, legislative advocacy, and awareness programming.  Jane stands up and speaks out in support of LGBT rights and the need for families and communities to embrace their LGBT populations.  She has spoken before the U.S. Congressional HELP Committee, the National Cathedral, and numerous other faith communities, colleges, universities, high schools, and workplaces.

Ellen Kahn, Senior Director of Programs and Partnerships, Human Rights Campaign Ellen Kahn is the Senior Director of Programs and Partnerships at the Human Rights Campaign. She oversees a portfolio of programs and projects aimed at improving the lives of LGBTQ youth and families, including Welcoming Schools, All Children-All Families, Project THRIVE, Parents for Transgender Equality, HIV and Health Equity, and the HBCU Program. In her 14+ years at HRC, Ellen has shaped innovative system-change work in child welfare, education, and health care.  She is nationally recognized as an expert on LGBTQ family life, LGBTQ youth, and frequently writes and speaks on these topics for a wide variety of audiences.

A self-described trans-affirming, progressive lesbian feminist social worker, and mother of two wonderful daughters, Ellen has dedicated her career to improving the lives of LGBTQ people–from working on behalf of people with HIV/AIDS in the early days of the epidemic to facilitating dozens of “Maybe Baby” groups for prospective LGBTQ parents. Before joining HRC, Ellen spent 12 years at Whitman-Walker Health (formerly Whitman-Walker Clinic), leading the Lesbian Services Program for eight of those years; in that role, Ellen led the expansion of programs to meet the needs of the growing community of LGBTQ people prospective parents, and those already navigating life with children.

Caitlin Ryan, Ph.D., Director, Family Acceptance Project, San Francisco State University Caitlin Ryan is the Director of the Family Acceptance Project—a research, education, intervention, and policy project to help ethnically, racially, and religiously diverse families support their LGBTQ children. Dr. Ryan is a clinical social worker, researcher, and educator who has worked on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) health and mental health for more than 40 years and whose work on LGBTQ health has shaped policy and practice for LGBTQ and gender-diverse children and youth. She received her clinical training with children and adolescents at Smith College School for Social Work. Dr. Ryan pioneered community-based AIDS services at the beginning of the epidemic; initiated the first major study to identify lesbian health needs in the early 1980s; and has worked to reduce risk and promote well-being for LGBTQ youth since the early 1990s. She started the Family Acceptance Project  (FAP) with Dr. Rafael Diaz in 2002 to help diverse families decrease rejection and prevent related health risks for their LGBT children—including suicide, drug use, homelessness, and HIV—and to promote family acceptance and positive outcomes including permanency.

Dr. Ryan and her team have developed the first evidence-informed family support model and a range of research-based materials and assessment tools to help families and caregivers to support their LGBT children, including Best Practice resources for suicide prevention and a series of short documentary films that show the journey from struggle to support of diverse families with LGBT children. Dr. Ryan is implementing FAP’s family support model in behavioral health, family preservation, and out-of-home care, including foster care, school-based care, and pastoral care, and has integrated core FAP components into Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT).

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BTC’s Executive Director, Joshua Sparrow, MD, is joined by Mayra Alvarez, president of The Children’s Partnership, for a conversation about current immigration policies, their harmful effects on children and families, and what we can all do to stop the violence.

Mayra Alvarez is President of The Children’s Partnership (TCP), a nonprofit children’s advocacy organization committed to giving every child, no matter their background, the resources, and opportunities they need for a bright future. Under her leadership, TCP is building strong community partnerships, conducting forward-looking research, and advancing informed policy that betters the health and well-being of underserved children in California. She combines her decade of experience in health care policy and community outreach with her personal conviction that every child and family should have the opportunity and resources to pursue their dreams.

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BTC’s Executive Director, Joshua Sparrow, MD, is joined by Hassan Daniel, Founder and CEO of The Father Factory, to discuss fathers with childhood histories of sexual abuse and how they can heal and become the fathers they want to be and their families need them to be.

Hassan Daniel is the Founder and CEO of The Father Factory, Inc., a fatherhood program geared towards positive parenting, biblical literacy, and counseling for fathers who have experienced various types of childhood trauma, including, but not limited to, molestation, and physical and mental abuse. Hassan, is a faithful husband, dedicated father to his two sons, ordained minister, and compassionate speaker on a mission to optimize affirmative parenting outcomes for fathers, by providing guidance, proven resources, and a non-judgmental community. Hassan’s mission is to help fathers navigate through everyday life despite personal dilemmas. Hassan additionally works with families while providing lectures on various topics ranging from inner healing to early childhood development. He is the published author of a book entitled, “Where is the man of the house?”.

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